Krugman, 1980 And All That
Dan here…Paul Krugman New York Times Dec. 24 notes Robert’s thinking on current story lines by some economists in macromedia. Other posts by Robert on the subject can be found here, here, here, and here. Krugman writes:
Robert Waldmann is shocked, shocked, to find conservative economists not doing their homework:
Even now, I am shocked that economists didn’t bother to look up the data on FRED before making nonsensical claims of fact.
…
But this is typical; it applies to issues across the board. The same people know that growth has been much faster since financial deregulation and the Reagan tax cuts, except that it hasn’t; they know that Reagan was the only president to oversee the creation of millions of jobs, because there never was a Clinton boom; they know that there has been unprecedented growth in government spending under Obama, when the reality is the opposite. At this point you shouldn’t be surprised.
Still, why this failure to do even the simplest homework? In general, people on the right seem to do economic history (and probably history in general) using the principle of 1066 And All That: “history is what you remember”, often what you sort of think you remember. They hear everyone around them saying stuff, repeat it, and that becomes what everyone knows; the idea of checking the facts themselves never seems to arise…
Message to Paul K and Robert W,
One does not bite the hand that provides the feed. My suggestion for a quick study. Check the academic and consultation connections of those who seem to disregard even the most obvious facts of economic life. Many academic chairs are funded by extraordinarily wealthy donors who have an ideology that requires a semblance of academic support. The same is true for so called think tanks (Cato comes to mind) and consultative work. We tend to think of academic positions as going to the most qualified researchers, but forget that research is subject to subjectivity on the part of even the best researchers. And when it comes to any social science the effect of researcher bias is well documented. In case it isn’t clear here, economics is a social science. It ain’t physics nor chemistry. As Mr. Sutton is said to have once said, “Cause that’s where the money is!”
Addendum to Message to Paul K and Robert W,
Take Jamison’s brief essay to heart. http://angrybearblog.strategydemo.com/2014/12/magical-thinking-and-the-paranoid-style.html. He’s onto something that should have been obvious to any reasonably intelligent person, though sometimes we are blind to that which stares us in the face. When mulling over the somewhat crass comments of Mr. Gruber, as described by Jamison, keep in mind that in the USofA measured IQ is about 110. That means that half the population tested, and that’s a really big number of people over the years, score below that mark. Stretch it up to about 120 (one std. deviation above the mean) and now you account for the measured intellect of about 85% of Americans. Check out any edition of a widely used IQ measurement instrument. Even a dummy could answer enough questions correctly to score 100 and it doesn’t require a whole lot of brains to score 120.
What does that all mean? Mr. Gruber was only being candid in his assessment of American’s thought processing. And I think it fair to say that he was focused not on all Americans when he made that comment, but more so on the intellect of those chosen to represent us in the Congress. A sad commentary, but all too true as demonstrated by the likes of the Gohmerts of the Congress.
Jack,
You are preaching to the choir here.
I doubt anyone knows, or wants to admit, exactly how stupid the citizens of the US are.
I’m surprised that the average IQ of as large a group of people as the USA is 110. IQ tests are supposed to be calibrated to produce an average of 100 according to my understanding. However, due to the Flynn Effect this requires constant recalibration so I guess 110 isn’t too far off. Any system which requires constant recalibration is a poorly-understood and flawed one, in my book, but IQ can claim some credence in predicting academic success.
Early childhood development (nutrition, care, and parental attention, e.g. reading to your children) is thought to be the biggest factor in determining IQ, according to a recent article in Science.
The nicest kid I knew in high school had a below-average IQ. Maybe we need some way of measuring NQ (niceness quotient) and improving that in our society.
Jim
IQ is not a measure of innate intellect, but instead it is an effort to measure retained learning. In other words, how much has a person retained from their interactions with their “learning” environment. Of course everyone’s such environment is different to some degree. Also, I don’t mean to suggest that 110 is the exact average. That measure probably differs depending on the instruments used to gather such data. Many factors are likely to effect the result of one’s responses to such measurement instruments.
Also, my original comment was meant as support for Mark Jamison’s contention, http://angrybearblog.strategydemo.com/2014/12/magical-thinking-and-the-paranoid-style.html, that the political class on the right side of the aisle and their financial supporters in general take full advantage of the intellectual limitations of the masses to accomplish their own selfish ends.
Keep in mind that ignorance is the basis for the success of propaganda and the media is crammed with such fallacious content. Goebbels did not succeed on the basis of his military acumen. Every dishonest political movement needs a commissioner of deceit and deception. We have more than a fair share and they are all well funded, especially by the right side of corporate America. And corporate America owns the main stream media. There is no trace of a left wing media and very little evidence of a liberal media. There are some centrist organs that play both sides of the aisle. As the Sandwichman said, “The world is going to hell, send money.” Irrational fear sells.
IQ does not imply quality of character. That’s a whole other subject. The point of Gruber’s original remark was that “people” are idiots though we can’t be certain which people he was referring to. I like to think he was focused on the members of the Congress. There are many in that body who qualify for the identification made by Gruber.